More than 200 movies, documentaries and shorts, including many classics, will be showing at the Sydney Film Festival - so where do you start? Does the African-American Baadassss! tomorrow night sound better than South Korean thriller Memories of Murder? Who knows about the program of German music videos? Or the almost 10-hour doco West of the Tracks about a decaying industrial district in China? Here are a few potential highlights.

Godzilla

Fifty years ago, the king of monster movies hit the big screen, trampled Tokyo and spawned 28 sequels - the latest and reputedly final of which was partly filmed in Sydney last week. The original Godzilla was beaten to the 1954 Japanese Oscar by Kurosawa's Seven Samurai. There'll be one late-night screening on June 19.

Award winners

Chernobyl Heart, which explores the human consequences of the Soviet nuclear accident, won this year's Oscar for best short documentary. Picking up audience awards at this year's Sundance festival were the comedy Seducing Dr Lewis, about a young doctor being enticed into a Quebec community, and the doco Born into Brothels, about children of Calcutta prostitutes getting inspired as they learn photography.

Somersault

Sydney filmmaker Cate Shortland's first feature, Somersault, made a splash at last month's Cannes Film Festival. Abbie Cornish stars as a troubled 16-year-old growing up in a ski town. It was filmed in Jindabyne and has a soundtrack by top dance-rock act Decoder Ring.

The Life and Death of Peter Sellers

Geoffrey Rush was praised in Cannes for his virtuoso performance in The Life and Death of Peter Sellers, playing the comic genius best known for the Pink Panther movies, Dr Strangelove and Being There. Fellow Oscar-winner Charlize Theron plays Sellers's second wife, the model-actress Britt Ekland.

Documenting Australia

Three Japanese midget subs made an infamous attack in Sydney Harbour in World War II. The documentary Sydney at War: The Untold Story explores the lasting emotional consequences of that dark night. Equally emotional will be the Australian documentary Mademoiselle and the Doctor, about the assisted death of 79-year-old Lisette Nigot in Perth in 2002. Of course, no film about euthanasia would be complete without the advocate Dr Philip Nitschke, who will attend Sunday's premiere.

International affairs

Arab-American filmmaker Jehane Noujaim's documentary Control Room takes a look at the Arab news service Al-Jazeera during the war in Iraq. It promises insights into the struggle between information and propaganda on both sides. The war on terror is also examined in Australian doco Anthem, which looks at democracy and our relationship with the US.

The Life and Death of Peter Sellers.

Asia

Revered Raise the Red Lantern director Zhang Yimou's first foray into martial-arts films, Hero, stands out in this year's relatively limited offerings from Asia. The closing-night film, Takeshi Kitano's samurai comedy Zatoichi, could also be a highlight.

Michelangelo Antonioni

The retrospective on enigmatic Italian director Michelangelo Antonioni includes the well-known L'Avventura, Blowup and Zabriskie Point as well as the lesser-known but lavishly praised atmospheric romance L'Eclisse.

Exotic

For those with a taste for exotic parts, there are films from Bhutan (Travellers and Magicians), Mongolia (The Story of the Weeping Camel), Bosnia (Summer in the Golden Valley) and Bolivia (Sexual Dependency).

Acting for real

If you can't get a job as an actor, you may as well become the subject of a documentary. Addicted to Acting follows four German drama students trying to get a break.